Saturday, 11 February 2012

Last Wednesday, Radio 3's morning slot 'Your Call' (in which a listener calls in to request a piece of music, explaining as to why it has special meaning) featured Terri from Corsica. The story that Terri told very poignently set up the piece she had chosen: Madeleine Grey's 1930 recording of Joseph Canteloube's Baïlèro, from the Chants d'Auvergne. She recalled how in the late '70s, she and her husband had decided to divorce, and in the relief of having made the decision, strapped some bicycles to the top of their Cortina and headed to the Auvergne for a cycling holiday. Some time later, after the sadness of their parting, she was in the kitchen making bread. The recording came on the radio, and Terri stopped what she was doing, struck by how the music took her back to the strangley smooth mountainous region of France, and perfectly encaptured its silence. She described how the dough rose around her wrists as she listened, frozen as though in an inverse game of Musical Statues. Here is the recording, and if you are quick enough to listen again before next week, a link to iplayer...